Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a country in South Asia. It has a 1,046-kilometre
(650 mi) coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by
Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. Tajikistan also lies very
close to Pakistan but is separated by the narrow Wakhan Corridor. Strategically it is located in a position
between the important regions of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East.
The region forming modern Pakistan was the site of several ancient cultures including the neolithic
Mehrgarh and the bronze era Indus Valley Civilisation. Subsequently it was the recipient of Vedic,
Persian, Indo-Greek, Islamic, Turco-Mongol, and Sikh cultures through several invasions and/or
settlements. As a result the area has remained a part of numerous empires and dynasties including the
Persian empires, Islamic caliphates and the Mongol, Mughal, Sikh and British Empires. Pakistan gained
independence from the British Empire in 1947 after a struggle for independence, led by Mr. Mohammad
Ali Jinnah, that sought independent states for the Muslim majority populations of the eastern and western
regions of British India. With the adoption of its constitution in 1956, Pakistan became an Islamic republic.
In 1971, an armed conflict in East Pakistan resulted in the creation of Bangladesh.
Pakistan is a federal parliamentary republic consisting of four provinces and four federal territories. With
over 170 million people, it is the sixth most populous country in the world and has the second largest
Muslim population after Indonesia. It is an ethnically and linguistically diverse country with a similar
variation in its geography and wildlife. Since gaining independence, Pakistan's history has been
characterised by periods of military rule, political instability and conflicts with neighbouring India.
However, in the medieval period, while the eastern provinces of Punjab and Sindh grew aligned with
Indo-Islamic civilisation, the western areas became culturally allied with the Iranian civilisation of
Afghanistan and Iran. The region served as a crossroads of historic trade routes, including the Silk Road,
and as a maritime entreport for the coastal trade between Mesopotamia and beyond up to Rome in the
west and Malabar and beyond up to China in the east.
Modern day Pakistan was at the heart of the Indus Valley Civilisation; that collapsed in the middle of the
2nd millennium BCE and was followed by the Vedic Civilisation, which also extended over much of the
Indo-Gangetic plains. Successive ancient empires and kingdoms ruled the region: the Achaemenid
Persian empire around 543 BCE, the Greek empire founded by Alexander the Great in 326 BCE and the
Mauryan empire founded by Chandragupta Maurya and extended by Ashoka the Great, until 185 BCE.
The modern state of Pakistan was established on 14 August, 1947 (27 Ramadan 1366 in the Islamic
Calendar), carved out of the two Muslim-majority wings in the eastern and northwestern regions of British
India and comprising the provinces of Balochistan, East Bengal, the North-West Frontier Province, West
Punjab and Sindh. The controversial, and ill-timed, division of the provinces of Punjab and Bengal caused
communal riots across India and Pakistan—millions of Muslims moved to Pakistan and millions of Hindus
and Sikhs moved to India.
Disputes arose over several princely states including in the Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir, whose
Hindu ruler had acceded to India following an invasion by Pashtun tribal militias, leading to the First
Kashmir War in 1948.
Military The armed forces of Pakistan are the seventh-largest in the world. The three main services are
the Army, Navy and the Air Force, supported by a number of paramilitary forces which carry out internal
security roles and border patrols. The National Command Authority is responsible for exercising
employment and development control of all strategic nuclear forces and organisations, and for Pakistan's
nuclear doctrine.
The Pakistan Army came into existence after independence in 1947 and is currently headed by General
Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. The Pakistan Army is a professional fighting force. It has an active force of
612,000 personnel and 513,000 men in reserve. Conscription may be introduced in times of emergency,
but it has never been imposed.
Since independence, the Army has been involved in four wars with neighbouring India and several
border skirmishes with Afghanistan. It maintained division and brigade strength presences in some of the
Arab countries during the past Arab–Israeli Wars, and aided the Coalition in the first Gulf War. Other
major operations undertaken by the Army include Operation Black Thunderstorm and Operation
Rah-e-Nijat. Apart from conflicts, the Army has been an active participant in United Nations peacekeeping
missions and played a major role in rescuing trapped American soldiers from Mogadishu, Somalia in
1993 in Operation Gothic Serpent.
The Pakistan military first saw combat in the First Kashmir War, gaining control of what is now Azad
Kashmir. In 1961, the army repelled a major Afghan incursion on Pakistan's western border. Pakistan and
India were at war again in 1965 and in 1971. In 1973, the military quelled a Baloch nationalist uprising.
In the north, a wide variety of animals have found home in the mountainous regions including the Marco
Polo sheep, Urial sheep, Markhor and Ibex goats, black and brown Himalayan bears, and the rare Snow
Leopard. Another rare species is the blind Indus River Dolphin of which there are believed to be about
1,100 remaining, protected at the Indus River Dolphin Reserve in Sindh. There have been sightings of the
rare Asiatic cheetahs in the southwestern deserts of Sindh and Balochistan.
The Muslim-majority state of Pakistan occupies an area which was home to some of the earliest human
settlements and where two of the world's major religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, were practised.
The modern state was born out of the partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947 and has faced both
domestic political upheavals and regional confrontations.
Created to meet the demands of Indian Muslims for their own homeland, Pakistan was originally in two
parts.
The east wing - present-day Bangladesh - is on the Bay of Bengal bordering India and Burma. The west
wing - present-day Pakistan - stretches from the Himalayas down to the Arabian Sea.
Apart from crows, sparrows and myna, hawks, falcons, and eagles are the more commonly found birds
in Pakistan. A lot of birds sighted within Pakistan are migratory as they make their way from Europe,
Central Asia and India.
The lack of vegetative cover, severity of climatic conditions, and the impact of grazing animals on the
deserts have left wild animals in a precarious position. Chinkara is the only animal that can still be found
in significant numbers in Cholistan. The blackbuck, once plentiful in Cholistan, has now been eliminated;
efforts are being made to reintroduce them into the country. A small number of blue bulls are found along
the Pakistan-Indian border, and in some parts of Cholistan. Grey partridge, species of sand grouseand
the Indian courser are the main birds of the area. Peafowl occur in some areas in Cholistan.
Border tensions and terror
Cricket is the most popular sport in Pakistan, which won the 1992 World Cup
Pakistan's place on the world stage shifted after the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US. It dropped its
support for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and was propelled into the frontline in the fight against
terrorism, becoming a key ally of Washington.
However, Pakistani forces have struggled to maintain control over the restive tribal regions along the
Afghan border, where Taliban-linked militants became firmly entrenched.
Since 2009, the government has been waging an on-and-off military campaign to flush the militants out of
the tribal areas.
It has repeatedly denied US and Afghan allegations that senior Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders are present
in the wild border areas, or that its intelligence service ISI even has links to militant groups operating
against the Afghan government.
Tensions with India over Kashmir have resurfaced regularly ever since the partition of the sub-continent,
and the two nuclear-armed powers have on numerous occasions been on the brink of renewed conflict.
India has accused Pakistan of failing to cooperate adequately over the investigation into the November
2008 extremist attacks in Mumbai, and has halted talks on improving relations.